With the innovation and development of technology, more and more electronic devices have become part of people's daily lives. A person may have a number of communication devices such as smart phones, tablets, laptops, or personal computers. It is a challenging job for communication service providers, enterprise IT departments, and individual consumers to manage more and more devices.
Configuration, diagnosis, resource maintenance, health check, and security are the main tasks of device management, monitor and control. An example of configuration on a device is to select the proper language setting based on a user's preference. The analysis of call drops on a mobile phone is an example of diagnosis. An example of resource maintenance on a device is to manage files and applications regularly. The statistical report of cpu, memory, disk and process usages on a device is an example of health check. An example of security on a device is to setup proper passwords based on certain security policy.
Traditional device management, monitor and control systems are based on client-server model. A centralized server can manage, monitor and control a number of, such as hundreds, thousands or millions of, client devices. The client devices receive commands from the server and perform whatever actions the server asks for.
There are a few drawbacks for traditional device management, monitor and control approach. First, device management, monitor and control systems are mainly designed for communication service providers and enterprises, not for individual consumers. Second, due to the complexity to handle different devices, most of implementations and deployments of device management, monitor and control systems are very complicated, expensive, and unaffordable to individual consumers. Third, the client-server model in device management, monitor and control is a one-way management, monitor and control approach from a server to a client. The client cannot manage, monitor and control the server.
Therefore, there is a need to provide a cost-effective and flexible solution for individual consumers to manage, monitor and control their electronic assets.